The Cannoli Disaster

After a long, successful day of shopping at the vintage flea market, I returned home to conquer the cannoli. Or so I though....

I suppose I started off with the wrong attitude, I was a bit tired and honestly just wanted to get it over with. I was not even in the mood for cannoli. I google a recipe and started with the dough. There were several variations, so I randomly borrowed from them all for my convenience. Baking is a science so I was rather sure it would not end well for me. I felt quite accomplished as I kneaded the flour into a dough-like form. "If this works, I will be quite impressed with myself", I thought.

While the dough "rested" in the fridge I prepared the oil for my fried cannoli and heated the oven for my baked cannoli. Then I turned to the easy part; the filling. All that goes into the filling is ricotta, vanilla and powdered sugar.

I guesstimated on the powdered sugar and began to mix it into the cheese. I tasted it. It was too sweet, grainy and quite watery. Hmmmm. I remember the vanilla! Better flavor, but still not right. Fuck it! I added in some fat free cream cheese, thinking it might thicken things up and cut the sweetness. Hmmm, no cigar. Oh well. I didn't have anymore ricotta, so I threw it in the fridge and hoped it would firm-up.

Ok, now for the cannoli rolling. I took out the bowl of dough, broke off a hunk and began rolling. It was a total mess, flour flying everywhere. I cut my circles, re-rolled them into ovals and wrapped my cannoli molds. Two in the oven and two in the fryer. Low and behold it seemed to work! The fried cannoli's became golden and slide off their molds! I nearly burned the baked ones, but they came out alive!

Well, after about 8 of them, I had had it with the cannoli experience. Though I love to cook, not knowing or believing that my recipe will turn out makes my patience run quite thin. I threw the cannolis and paper towel covered cutting board into the fridge and collapsed onto the couch.

After watching the Soup, I decided the cannoli's were probably cool enough to fill. I pulled out my pastry bag, a plate, the shells and my filling. The damned filling had not gotten any firmer. Oh well, if ready the Julie/Julia Project had taught me anything it was to just finish the damn thing and get on with your life!

I scooped runny spoonfuls of the wretched filling into the pastry bag, where it thankfully eked out slower than I could spoon. I filled my first cannoli. It was ugly, but ok. With the next squeeze of the bag, all hell broke loose. That is if hell is half ass cannoli filling. The runny blob had escaped from the top of the bag and ended up all over my shells and me. After cursing and wiping/licking-up the mess, I proceeded to fill the rest of the shells. I thought perhaps I could coax the dreaded filling into staying put if I garnished the ends of the cannoli with chocolate chips. The greedy white mess pretty much just gobbled them up. Sighing, I put the whole mess of them in a tupperware and threw them in the freezer along side the massive quantity of left over dough.

Another Tivo'ed episode of The Soup later, I felt I was up for a taste test. Who would win, baked or fried? Would the shells be as gross as the filling?

God had mercy on this over-zealous, fat-reducing cook. The shells were great! In fact, the baked shells were even better than the fried! They were crisp and flavorful and almost made the filling edible.

I re-checked the filling recipe to see what possibly could have gone wrong with such a s

imple dish. There it was, my simple and fatal oversight: "drain the ricotta well using a cheese

cloth". No wonder it was a runny mess! I had thrown in the entire package, dripping with cheesy lactate. Well, now I know. My dear friend Gus pleaded with me on Friday to not throw them out, no matter how bad I thought they were. She thinks I am a picky perfectionist and is dying to try them. Well Gus, six runny Cannoli are coming your way Monday morning, Bon Appitite!